ABSTRACT
This article presents a three-step argument for the moral permissibility of physician-assisted suicide (PAS) and euthanasia (E). After a brief discussion of how death could sometimes be in a persons best interests and a lesser evil than other bad things that might happen to her, author presents the Three-Step Argument. EUTHANASIA involves a death that is intended in order to benefit the person who dies. The two premises death involves a lesser evil and imminence of death has different implications in cases in which the patient is not terminal. Using this premise people could construct an Alternative Three-Step Argument. The second premise is that doctors could permissibly intend greater evils other than death that will occur imminently anyway in order to produce a lesser good. The conclusion is that it is permissible for doctors to intentionally kill a terminally ill patient in order to stop pain, even if death is the greater evil and relief of pain the lesser good.
